No, Really, Strange Things Are Happening at the Vatican

That was the response to an article on Wednesday in an Italian daily newspaper, Quotidiano Nazionale, that reported that Pope Francis had a tiny, treatable brain tumor that posed no immediate threat to his health. The article was so thinly sourced as to be dismissed by most news outlets here, though the editor of the newspaper that published the article strongly defended the reporting. Yet even for a country accustomed to yawning at dubious headlines, the timing of the report set off speculation that something less than healthy was afoot at the Vatican. "The timing of this reveals an intent to manipulate and create unnecessary uproar," the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, said. Indeed, the report landed as Francis and 270 bishops from around the world were in the final days of a three-week, closed-door debate of the Roman Catholic Church's approach to issues including divorce, homosexuality and the role of women.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

It appears that, within the Vatican, a place that had about an 1800-year head start on the rest of the world as regards ratfcking your way to power, and in the wake of the clumsy maneuvering that placed faith-based nutball Kim Davis in front of Papa Francesco, there is some strategic Segrettism going on within the Clan of the Red Beanie and its hangers-on. This synod is screwing with some people's minds and, while I don't think any serious doctrinal change is going to be forthcoming, I do believe that some well-fed princes of the Church are getting a little uncomfortable with the notion that this pope expects them to be pastors and not princes of any kind.

Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on Thursday that he feared that the article was part of a well-planned "apocalyptic strategy" against Francis by conservatives who want to "discredit the one who holds the power" and "destabilize him." Archbishop Fernández, a close friend of Francis' from Argentina, was among the bishops chosen by Francis to attend the synod.

Most Popular

Which doesn't mean the whole thing isn't getting supremely weird.

According to the report, some months ago, residents in the area around a private clinic near the Tuscan city of Pisa noted a helicopter with yellow and white banners on the side flying over the area. The helicopter landed at the clinic's helipad, the report said. A few minutes later, some unnamed witnesses told the paper, a Japanese neurologist and brain cancer specialist, Dr. Takanori Fukushima, and his team left the clinic and got on board. Dr. Fukushima works in Japan and the United States and periodically consults in clinics in Italy. A blog on his personal website featured photographs of him alone with Francis, shaking hands. But an Italian news outlet on Thursday published photographs showing that the doctor was among a crowd, and that the photos on his website had been manipulated to appear as if it were a one-on-one encounter. Late Wednesday, Dr. Fukushima issued a statement through the Carolina Neuroscience Institute in Raleigh, N.C., where he is director: "I have never medically examined the pope. These stories are completely false."